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.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
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.\"	@(#)lam.1	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
.\" $FreeBSD: src/usr.bin/lam/lam.1,v 1.13 2004/08/12 11:34:34 tjr Exp $
.\"
.Dd August 12, 2004
.Dt LAM 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm lam
.Nd laminate files
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl f Ar min . Ns Ar max
.Op Fl s Ar sepstring
.Op Fl t Ar c
.Ar
.Nm
.Op Fl p Ar min . Ns Ar max
.Op Fl s Ar sepstring
.Op Fl t Ar c
.Ar
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility copies the named files side by side onto the standard output.
The
.Em n-th
input lines from the input
.Ar files
are considered fragments of the single long
.Em n-th
output line into which they are assembled.
The name `\fB\-\fP' means the standard input, and may be repeated.
.Pp
Normally, each option affects only the
.Ar file
after it.
If the option letter is capitalized it affects all subsequent files
until it appears again uncapitalized.
The options are described below:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl f Ar min . Ns Ar max
Print line fragments according to the format string
.Ar min . Ns Ar max ,
where
.Ar min
is the minimum field width and
.Ar max
the maximum field width.
If
.Ar min
begins with a zero, zeros will be added to make up the field width,
and if it begins with a `\-', the fragment will be left-adjusted
within the field.
.It Fl p Ar min . Ns Ar max
Like
.Fl f ,
but pad this file's field when end-of-file is reached
and other files are still active.
.It Fl s Ar sepstring
Print
.Ar sepstring
before printing line fragments from the next file.
This option may appear after the last file.
.It Fl t Ar c
The input line terminator is
.Ar c
instead of a newline.
The newline normally appended to each output line is omitted.
.El
.Pp
To print files simultaneously for easy viewing use
.Xr pr 1 .
.Sh EXAMPLES
The command
.Bd -literal
lam file1 file2 file3 file4
.Ed
.Pp
joins 4 files together along each line.
To merge the lines from four different files use
.Bd -literal
lam file1 \-S "\\
" file2 file3 file4
.Ed
.Pp
Every 2 lines of a file may be joined on one line with
.Bd -literal
lam \- \- < file
.Ed
.Pp
and a form letter with substitutions keyed by `@' can be done with
.Bd -literal
lam \-t @ letter changes
.Ed
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr join 1 ,
.Xr paste 1 ,
.Xr pr 1 ,
.Xr printf 3
.Sh STANDARDS
Some of the functionality of
.Nm
is standardized as the
.Xr paste 1
utility by
.St -p1003.2 .
.Sh BUGS
The
.Nm
utility does not recognize multibyte characters.
